Biography
Marin Bek is a Master of Science in Electrical engineering in the field of control systems and automation, graduated in 2012 at the Faculty of electrical engineering and computing of University of Zagreb. His focus of studies were autonomous underwater vehicles, mainly exploiting latest hardware and software technologies in new products.
He currently serves as CEO of H2O Robotics, a university spin-off company manufacturing autonomous surface vehicles and other advanced maritime technologies developed at the University. His goal is to expand the company to foreign markets, grow sales and turn H2O Robotics into a recognized expert in advanced maritime technologies.
He is also founder of Ascalia Ltd., an IT company working in the field of data science, machine learning and industrial monitoring and control for smart cities and industry.
Prior to joining H2O Robotics as CEO in charge of growing the business and strategy, he worked as CTO at a startup NextUser in San Francisco USA (2013-2016) helping raise 2.5M$ in funding and grow the engineering team from 3 to 20 employees. NextUser is now a successful and profitable business and Mr. Bek has since stayed on in an advisory capacity as VP of Technology.
Before NextUser, he founded and served as CEO of Marine Tech Factory Inc. in Palo Alto USA (2012-2014), a startup which was commercialising an autonomous underwater vehicle he developed as part of his Master’s thesis. Even though the venture eventually failed, he gained invaluable experience in organising a business, fundraising and both good and bad parts of running a startup. Insight into startup culture of USA as well as off-shore maritime industry gave him a significant edge in his later endeavours, especially in growing H2O Robotics into a respectable business.